Wasting Food Can Lead To Climate Change

According to two studies, overproduction of food is causing greenhouse gas production to skyrocket, leading to climate change. (Photo : Wow_Pho/Pixabay)

The world is already producing more food that it can consume. In spite of this, food shortages are still rampant across the globe, and food waste numbers are across the charts. These problems appear to be contradicting each other, but it has led to another queer problem: climate change. Apparently, the large amount of food waste being produced is leading to climate change, ACS reported.

Since there is an overproduction of food and is being wasted instead of given to people who direly need it, this presents a major dilemma to world food security. This also affects climate change, simply because the greenhouse gases being used to produce the food is negatively affecting the atmosphere. The study also concludes that the food requirement will increase by 2 percent to 20 percent by 2050. This, in turn, means the problem will increase drastically in the future, making the problem worse.

A new study, which was done by the researchers at Potsdam's Institute for Climate Impact Research, found that a third of the world's food production does not find its way into our plates. Furthermore, the rate of which is projected to increase in the long run.

"Reducing food waste can contribute to fighting hunger, but to some extent also prevent climate impacts like more intense weather extremes and sea-level rise," lead author Ceren Hic in a press release said.

The agriculture industry is also a major factor in dishing out greenhouse gases, accounting for a 5th of the world's total emissions. Other major industries contributing to emissions include the automobile and fossile fuel industries.

"At the same time, agriculture is a major driver of climate change, accounting for more than 20 Percent of overall global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2010," co-author Prajal Pradhan explain. "sAvoiding food loss and waste would, therefore, avoid unnecessary greenhouse-gas emissions and help mitigate climate change."